Anti-nutritional factors in food and plant crops

Some of plants mainly contains toxic compound such as saponins, tannins, phytic acid, gossypol, lectins, protease inhibitors, amylase inhibitor, goitrogens etc. which limits their consumption and also reduces nutrient bioavailability when consumed. These factors are responsible for micronutrient malnutrition and mineral deficiencies. On the other hand they act as self defense system to the food. These are categorized into different categories and causes various symptoms upon consumption such as acute toxicity include respiratory distress, impaired body weight gain, anorexia, weakness, apathy and in some cases even death after several days. But there are various traditional methods and improved technologies are available, which can be used to reduce the levels of these anti-nutrient factors. Various processing methodologies such as fermentation, germination, debranning, autoclaving, soaking, drying, irradiation etc. are used to reduce the anti-nutrient contents in foods. The review is focused on some common recently important anti-nutritional factors (ANF) which were of major concern.